Just hang up, You don't need to say a word. Just hang up.

I don't have the time to waste on them.

Yeah, just hang up.

Answering your phone just let's them know what time of day you'll be home, and you'll get more calls........ :o)

I've been getting these calls too. Just started a couple weeks ago. I've been getting a lot of calls from NJ and MI and other states. Never got them before.

Just for kicks I picked up the phone, and poked my cat so she would meow, just to see if anyone was there. The recording kicked in and it was to extend warranty on my car. I didn't get to talk to a live person, I was toying with the idea of stringing them along similar to adirondack.

I was talking to a Bell representative today and he said to punch the number sign several times and this jumbles the phone numbers. I'm certainly going to try it next time. Do you get numbers that come in with all Zeros, and 1234567890?? I'D love to get a number like that.

I get both those numbers on both my home phone and our cell phones all the time. I don't answer them. I always google numbers I don't know. And both the 000-000-0000 and the 123-456-7890 numbers will show up a lot. There is another one too, and the caller is actually here in Calgary. I mistakingly answered the phone last week thinking it was a number I knew, and the first thing the guy said was, "I'm not a telemarketer..." I told him to remove my number from their calling list. When he tried to speak over me, ignoring what I said, I told him again to remove my phone number PLEASE, or I would report him to the telephone company and would have harrasment charges laid. It's been 3 weeks, that number hasn't called back since.

Normally I don't answer those calls, which don't come too often, but I did take one not too long ago...Right away, I told the person, I'm on a no call list and she came back, pretty defiant, "We don't have to go by that list"..I said, in this house you do and would report them if they called again.....Haven't had a call in weeks....

"I was talking to a Bell representative today and he said to punch the number sign several times and this jumbles the phone numbers."

Huh?!? When are you supposed to "punch the number sign several times"? When you're placing a call? When you answer a call? I did voice telecom for about 12 years, and I've never heard of such a thing.

"Do you get numbers that come in with all Zeros, and 1234567890?? I'D love to get a number like that."

No one "gets a number like that." The companies that call you and have such a number show up on your Caller ID have a PBX (Private Branch Exchange). A PBX uses what is called "trunk lines." To your house, you have a dedicated phone line. Unless you have some nifty special features on the line (which would be more than extremely rare in a residence), if someone is using the phone line, no one else can use it. Yeah, you can have Call Waiting and get a second phone call coming in; and, yeah, you can have 3-way calling and then connect another person into your existing call... But for a different person to make a totally separate outgoing call that isn't tied into your existing conversation requires a totally separate line -- unless you have "trunk lines" coming in.

Look at it this way... say a business has 100 employees, all of whom have a phone on their desk. The odds of all 100 employees needing to be on the phone at exactly the same time is very low. A company can have a PBX and then have, say, 55 lines that are shared by all 100 employees for incoming/outgoing calls. Maybe 25 of the lines will be dedicated for incoming calls, and the other 30 lines are dedicated to outgoing calls. (So if 30 folks are already on outgoing calls and you want to call out, you won't get dial tone.) A PBX is a very sophisticated computer system that has to have an administrator that is well trained for that specific system. One of the things you can do with a PBX is program into the system the specific telephone number that you want folks to see on their Caller ID when they receive a call placed from within your PBX.

So, when 000-000-0000 or 123-456-7890 shows up on your Caller ID, you can rest assured that it is NOT a legitimate phone number. It is simply the number that the PBX administrator has programmed into their system.

I knew that the zeroes and 1234 numbers were not legitimate. That's of course why I don't answer them. I was talking jokingly when I said I'd love a number like that.

Next time I get a recorded telemarketing call, I'm going to push the pound button several times anyway.

Now if the CRTC will only make it illegal for calls to come in on my answering machine without the phone ringing. I hate picking up the phone, finding I have a message and then it's a tele call. Calls like this don't even give me chance to tell them not to call.

The Do Not Call Registry is a joke too. While it stops Canadian telemarketers from calling a Canadian telephone, it doesn't stop them from calling a US phone. While I am getting fewer calls since registering, I do get a lot more US telemarketers calling us now. It's legal for them to call us because they don't have to abide by our laws.

Telemarketers are lower than bugs on the bottom of whale poop in the ocean. They're scum. They unemployable in any other facet of life ergo, they harass people. I do like people that tie up their time. Ask stupid questions of them in the middle of serious sounding ones. Ask if the contract can be on plaid paper. Get an air horn and blast it into the phone. Hold the phone down in a toilet and flush it. Make "body" sounds and express regret about eating chili that day. Constantly put them on hold for 15-30 seconds and then have them start all over again.

But most importantly? DON'T BUY FROM THEM! And make sure nobody you know does. If they don't have a market, they won't waste their time. Why do you think we get so much spam in our inboxes? Because idiots buy it. People are stupid. We need to educate them and not politely. Tough love.

I think you have missed my point. The Do Not Call List is not working. Telemarketing calls have become much more frequent in the past year. This has happened because the call center can make calls using a random dialer and the internet, at very little cost. The reward may be as much as $20 paid for every live prospect they turn over to a salesperson. They make hundreds of calls an hour, fully expecting most to be no answer, busy, or if answered, hang-ups. They plan on only talking to only a few people for the many, many calls dialed out. The call centers are very under staffed and cannot talk too many real people, even for just half a minute. In this game, seconds count. After all, they donÂt know who will buy or not and only get paid when a prospect is turned over to the salesperson. If you want to at least slow down this form of marketing, you need to talk to a live person every time and clog up their system. If you want to make it too expensive to market this way, then you need to talk to the sales person and get a price on what ever they are selling. The bad part is the sales person has to pay a fee for each call they accept from the call center. Sales companies are famous for making the sales person pay as many of the expenses as they can, and lead fees will fall directly into that area. If enough calls donÂt turn into sales, the call center will be fired, the real goal. Just a few extra minutes on all of our parts can really increase the time spent on each call, causing the call centerÂs plan to fail at finding qualified prospects cheaply

I wouldn't be a telemarketer for anything... I hate having telemarketers call me. I don't talk to them. I tell them I'm not interested and then I hang up.

But, this is not true. "Telemarketers are lower than bugs on the bottom of whale poop in the ocean. They're scum."

Telemarketers are people we (that's the global we, not just me) know. There are so many people out there without jobs through no fault of their own. If they take a job at Burger King, or as a telemarketer, or delivering papers (or any one of a hundred other meniel jobs) to help feed and cloth their families and pay the bills, then I say good for them! I hope I'll have as much gumption and strength as they do if I ever get in that situation.

Or maybe I would be a telemarketer.... if I had hungry kids at home and bills to pay.

I just say "I'm unemployed" (the truth) and hang up. Nobody ever calls back after that.

I agree with jel48, completely. And I would never blow an air horn into anyone's ear-except maybe an obscene caller (and even then I have just hung up). There is no need to be mean.

They're being mean to me, they're scum. I have the utmost respect for paper carriers, Burger King employees and anyone working a reputable job earning an honest living. I DO NOT have respect for the drug dealer who can claim to be out of a job by no fault of their own, just trying to make some money. I do not have respect for the armed robber, the burgler, the embezzler, the scam artist, (or am I being redundant?) or a peeping tom who also invades peoples' privacy solely for their own benefit. These too are people we know. But that doesn't excuse what they do.

There's plenty of honest work out there - nobody has to resort to telemarketing. Anyone who harasses people, lies to people and the like deserve not only no respect, but disrespect and retribution. I cannot excuse people simply because I know them, or because they're nice people. The lack of accountability is a disease on society and I think we need to demand more of it.

Now, all that said, I should clarify something. If someone uses the phone to build their business, I don't have a problem with that. For instance, if an insurance agent calls and asks to give a quote, I'm polite to them. I consider that totally different than the scam artist telemarketer using war dialers and recorded messages to scam people. That to me is respectable use, although still annoying.

Cynic, my son was a telemarketer because he could not find a job ANYWHERE else! You call him scum? He as an 18 year old boy who freaking hated his job, hated calling people, hated being called "gay" "a**hole" "dumb f**k", you name it, for 8 hours a day by people he didn' know. All because he needed to pay his bills, which included his rent and FOOD for only $8 an hour, which back then was something like 50 cents over minimum wage here. There is no need to call the employees who are trying to make ends meet "scum". My son is far from scum. He is an honest, hard working person who would give the shirt off his back if he could to help anyone out. He is my pride and joy. He hated his job, but it put food on his table and a roof over his head. He lasted at one job for 2 weeks before walking out in the middle of his shift. He was desperate in his second job as a telemarketer and stuck around for the abuse for 3 months before walking out on them. Trust me, most people who do that job will never get paid enough for the sh*t and abuse they have to deal with every day. But it beats going on welfare. It's a job.

Telemarketers call here and I simply say "Hold on" and put the phone down. Sometimes we play jokes on 'em, impersonating "Bubba J." or "Peanut" from Jeff Dunham. :)

Cindy